Ce travail de thèse porte sur la question de la représentation picturale (l’aspect iconique de la peinture) et celle de la représentation de la peinture (l’aspect pictural de la peinture) dans le contexte contemporain. C’est un travail sur la peinture, avec la peinture et de la peinture. Un travail sur la peinture puisque l'acte de peindre n'a de finalité que celle de feindre la représentation et afin de permettre à la peinture de défendre un espace pictural. Un travail avec la peinture car il est question de partage lors d'une représentation, c'est à dire : tenir compte d'une libération de la peinture à travers la figure. Et enfin, un travail de la peinture qui est mise en exergue de la réalité matérielle de la peinture (la picturalité). Ma démarche a pour appui l'exercice d'une dialectique (acte de peindre et acte de peinture) et l'articulation d'un principe de la transfiguration (d’une figuration à une peinture figurée). De ce fait, j'opte pour une représentation qui s'élabore par dripping et jets de la peinture sur toile. / This thesis deals with the issue of pictorial representation (iconic aspect of the painting) and the representation of painting (pictorial aspect of the painting) in the contemporary context. It is a work on painting, with painting and painting. Work on the painting since the act of painting has finality than pretend representation and to allow the paint to defend a pictorial space. Work with the paint as it is about sharing during a performance, that is to say, reflect a release of painting through the figure. And finally, a paint job that is highlighted in the material reality of the painting (the pictoriality). My approach is to support the exercise of a dialectic (act of painting and action painting) and the articulation of a principle of transfiguration (in a figurative to a figurative painting). Therefore, I opt for a representation that is developed by dripping and throwing paint on canvas.

Images of the Mater dolorosa, the weeping Mother of God mourning over her dead son, are plentiful art of Northern Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and often foreground the shedding of effluvia—blood, sweat, and tears—in their depictions of the holy pair. This paper explores the visual themes of tears, blood, eyes, and wounds as vital actors in images that require close, meditative, and affective looking and engagement. Such image formats include small-scale pairings of the Man of Sorrows and Mater dolorosa as well as books of hours. In these contexts, the holy fluids and their bodily sources expand the images' narratives and allow for greater exegesis of their devotional prompts. This phenomenon of expansion via effluvia occurs throughout Flemish devotional culture of this period; this paper uses Albrecht Bouts's diptych panels of the Mater dolorosa and Man of Sorrows, produced between 1490 and 1525, as the chief case study to encapsulate and ground those ideas while still acknowledging that they also apply beyond this image. Considering the widespread commonalities between blood and tears in visual and textual representations of the early modern Flemish devotional culture and the visual similarities between weeping eyes and bleeding wounds, this paper argues that Mary's eyes act as the external manifestations of her internal wounds and become locus of her Compassion for Christ. Furthermore, pictorial blood and tears function as metonymic devices that, like the Man of Sorrows type, invoke the entirety of the Passion and Compassion. The multivalent functions of the blood and tears in Bouts's diptych expand it beyond just a representation of Mary and her son and allow it to become a window and mirror into which viewers could look to engage in penance and communion with Mary and Christ.